Transitioning into Adulthood Can Be Hard.

By Mary Lou Buschi

Photo Credit: Glen Carrie

After Naomi Shihab Nye – A Boy Told Me

Here are my hard skills.

Drawing pictures for my mom.

Waiting in line.

Practicing is harder than I thought.

Lining up in order is hard.

Carrying heavy things is so much hard work.

Telling a story is so hard.

Cleaning the house is quite hard.

Folding clothes is even harder.

Writing sentences is way hard.

My soft skills are

breathing through.

Playing inside.

Resting my head is soft.

Coloring pictures is soft.

Listening to calm music is soft.

Painting is so much softer than it is loud.

Doing yoga poses is soft.

Concentration on my work is soft.

Blowing bubbles might be soft.

My house is soft. 

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Attention Deficit Disorder

By Mary Lou Buschi

That chip in the linoleum, the shape of a cameo

my mother fastens to her scarf before church.

The led lodged into my ring finger under layers of skin

beginning to look blue in the light.

The boy with his hands in his desk

making a Fortune Teller from a perfect square

of note paper.

I watched wind whip leaves into a circle,

into a squirrel, a lock of hair, back to dust.

His fingernail

squared the folds.

No one liked him. He represented a skip,

a missed stitch.

Later with the tips of his fingers

in the neat triangular pleats

he’d ask me to choose

a color, then a number.

John, why am I thinking of you so many years later

            frustrated by a lack of focus in all of them.

You were right, there was thunder in both of us,

as you lifted a corner to read

a portent inscribed in red.

You will live in a house you name Sorrow, you said.

at the intersection of intellect and rapture.

In the distance a fine vein of lighting

cuts through midnight teal and then the rolling over.

Thunder again and again.

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Mary Lou Buschi (she/her) has 3 full length poetry collections. Her 3rd book, BLUE PHYSICS, 2024 (Lily Poetry Review) was a finalist for Contemporary Poetry in The International Book Awards. Her poems have appeared in literary journals such as Ploughshares, Glacier, Willow Springs, The Laurel Review and Jet Fuel Review.

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